


Sleep

by orphan_account



Series: Asexual Wolves [10]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Asexual Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Night Terrors, Nightmares, not a lot of focus on asexuality here actually sorry, sort of i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-27 06:55:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2683442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"...Sometimes I see flames. And sometimes<br/>I see people that I love dying and... it's always..."</p><p>Derek has a nightmare, and Stiles is the one that helps him out of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty much everything about this was inspired by the My Chemical Romance song [Sleep](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRHz4cPlCRE)  
> I actually stopped watching Teen Wolf about midway through the last season and definitely have been less involved in the fandom, so I can't actually guarentee that this is entirely in character. I'm sorry I haven't written much for this series, but I haven't forgotten it.

Derek is running. 

He can't tell what form he's in, but he is running, and he is running fast. 

If he could pull his mind out of sheer terror and the pure instinct to run away as fast as possible, he'd be able to notice how he's running, but he's too far gone to even notice that. All of his mind is focused on one thing, running as far and as fast as he can while trying to avoid braining himself on a tree or falling over. 

Something is chasing him. 

He doesn't know what that is either, he just knows that he needs to get away from it. 

He's not  _actually_ even positive that there's something chasing him, but there definitely is something that he needs to get away from.

Derek is alone. 

That much he is fully aware of, and the longer he thinks about that fact, the more unusual it seems. There's always someone with him, his pack is so big, why would he ever go off on his own? Why would he ever need to?

_Where is everyone?_

Derek doesn't know. 

The smell of smoke and ash and burning is thick and the forest, even though Derek can't see any smoke. Which is confusing. Sometimes they have cook outs at the house, but there shouldn't be this much fire smell in the air. His mom and dad are always so careful to keep the fires contained because they don't want it to spread to the house or the forest. Why is this scent so damn  _thick???_ _  
_

There are ashes in the wind, and he can feel them tangling with his fur.

Fur?

Derek shouldn't have fur. 

Derek isn't an alpha?

Is he?

No, Derek's mom is most definitely the alpha, and if she isn't, Laura should be. Derek shouldn't  _be_ an alpha, he shouldn't have fur, where is everybody?

When he is distracted by his thoughts, he loses track of where he's going. His shoulder collides with a tree and Derek lets out a pained yelp as he tumbles head over paws, finally coming to a stop a few feet away. His shoulder hurts and his lungs burn with smoke and exertion. 

He stumbles when he tries to stand, legs shaking with exhaustion, and as he struggles, he realizes that there isn't anything chasing him. The forest is surprisingly silent, the only sound he can hear is the rustle of ash settling in leaves. He can barely see through all the smoke and ash and he wonders when that happened.

If there is nothing chasing him, then he's going to go find his pack. 

As soon as the thought enters his mind, it's all he can think about. His thoughts are reduced to nothing but the steady chanting of  _pack pack pack pack where the fuck is his pack?????_

He's running again. Back in the direction that he came from because there's some niggling feeling in his chest that's telling him that's exactly where he needs to be going. There's also some part of him that's pleading for him not to, but he has to. He needs to find his pack. 

The smoke begins to get thicker. The smell is practically strangling him, the ash is settling around his snout and it's choking him. The smell of perfume begins to permeate the smoke, and he can't quite place whose it is. It's not his mother's. He can tell that much. 

Sounds begin to emerge as he gets closer to wherever he's going. Small noises that he can't place at first, then strangled whimpers of pain that make him whine in responce, and then, he takes a single step and the entire forest erupts in a cacophony of noise that makes his entire body freeze, shocked still. Howls of agony and screams of pain are mixing together, over the sound of roaring flames and he can hear every single member of his entire pack wailing in suffering, voices clambering to be heard over one another. 

Derek's body refuses to move. He can't. He can't even blink and the smoke stings his eyes and makes them water and he stands there for god knows how long before he jolts himself out of whatever strange spell he was under and he sprints and he runs until he finally stumbles into a clearing and

The house is on fire. 

Derek can register only that fact at first, his house is on fire. 

His  _house_ is on  _fire._

He lets out a howl, calling  _begging_ for someone to be okay, but one new look at the house and he knows that there's no way. 

There are flames everywhere, waving out of windows while smoke pours from every opening in the house. The windows have exploded outwards, and shards of glass litter the grass and they reflect every startling orange and red color that is emanating from the house. The howls and screams are louder, they're deafening over the roars of the flames, and if the windows are all open then where are they? Why aren't they getting out of the house they could easily get out why aren't they getting out? 

That's when Derek notices the grate. 

There are two grates leading to the outside in Derek's house, from the basement. There in order to let air in when there are people locked down there during full moons. There shouldn't be people reaching out of the grates, no one should be in the basement. 

Yet there they all are, hands and claws desperately reaching out of the basement, tearing at each other and at the grass in frantic attempts to escape the burning fire that they're all trapped in. Derek can recognize all of them, he sees the hand of his aunt and his cousin and his tiny baby sister and he can hear her wailing, voice pitched high and cracking as she howls like she's only barely learned how to and Derek can't get to them. 

He's trying,  _god_ is he trying, but he's running as hard as he can and he's not getting anywhere and when he can finally tear his eyes away from the hands and he looks down he sees a line of mountain ash. And as soon as that registers, the smell of burning flesh is suddenly completely overwhelmed by perfume and when he looks up again he's face to face with Kate. 

"Thanks for the key, babe." she tells him, mouth smirking openly at him, she inhales deeply and the grin only widens. "Great night for a barbeque, right?" 

Derek can't speak, he howls loudly, that's all he can do in this form really. He tries to get at her, but he can't move past the ash and he paces around it, pawing at it in a desperate hope that he'll be able to penetrate the wall it forms. But when Kate's laughter is broken off in a horrible choked gurgling noise, he looks up again to see his half burned to death Uncle Peter with his claws embedded in her throat. 

Derek howls again, trying to get his attention, if anyone knew how to get rid of a mountain ash barrier it would be Peter, Peter knows everything, and if he's the only pack that Derek has left then Derek isn't going to let anything else keep them apart. But when Peter turns to look at him, his eyes look wrong and Derek can't place it. 

"Hello nephew." Peter says, and just as Derek is going to attempt a response, someone else calls his name. 

Laura. 

"Derek! Get away from h-" before she can even finish her sentence, Peter is barreling towards her, and she snarls, eyes flashing red and Derek feels his lungs freeze in his chest and before he can even think of what to do, Peter is tearing into the meat of her stomach. Laura howls in pain, her voice joining the rest of their families, but it quickly fades into pained whimpers and then finally just agonized retching as she begins to cough up blood. 

Peter doesn't stop until she's been torn completely in half and Derek isn't even sure if he's there anymore. He suddenly feels detached from everything that's happening and what is even happening anymore he can't...

"Derek!!" someone shouts, and Derek can't place the voice. "Derek!!"

Stiles. 

Derek howls for him, finally feeling like he's snapped back into his body and when he looks around he can't see the teenager anywhere. He tries to locate where his voice is coming from, and when he finally sees it he almost wishes that he hadn't. 

Stiles is in the second story window and  _how_  in the hell did he manage to get up there? Stiles has never been in Derek's pack house and shouldn't be in there because it's burning and as Stiles starts to scream "Derek you need to  _wake up"_ the roof suddenly collapses in on itself and Derek is howling and he is howling 

He's howling. 

Stiles' hands are frantic on his face, trying to smooth hair away from Derek's sweat soaked forehead as he alternates between trying to yell Derek away and mutter reassurances that everythig is okay. His weight is on Derek's lap, trying to keep the wolf from bolting off in his sleep, and Derek is so lost in panic that it takes a while for him to actually manage to strangle the howl that's emerging non stop from his chest. 

When he does manage to stop, Stiles lets out a sigh of relief that is quickly lost under the sound of Derek's frantic breathing and choked sobs. 

"Hey, shhhhh, it's okay, you're okay. You're safe Derek, I'm okay, you're okay, everything is okay, everyone is okay. Shhh, it's alright. You're okay." Stiles keeps up a steady stream of words, hands still continuing their soothing motions over Derek's face, neck, shoulders, chest, keeping Derek locked in that moment, preventing him from losing himself in terror again. "It's okay, you're okay, we're okay." 

Derek struggles to get ahold of himself and his bearings. He's in his bed, the sheets are torn and soaked through with sweat, but it's his bed. His and Stiles' bed, he's in his and Stiles' apartment and nothing is on fire and nothing is burning and Stiles is not trapped underneath an entire burning roof he's right there in Derek's lap, trying to get the wolf to calm down and stop crying. 

As Dereks' muscles begin to unlock and he manages to calm down to the point where he's no longer hyperventilating, Stiles visibly relaxes as well. Relief pouring off of him in waves because he hates it when Derek has nightmares almost as much as Derek himself does. 

"Are you okay?" Stiles asks, and Derek nods. "Do you want to talk about it?" 

"You... It was the fire." Derek gasps out, "The fire and Kate and Laura and Peter and you... you were burning and I couldn't... I couldn't get past the mountain ash and I..." he's starting to freak out again, and Stiles is quick to put a stop to it. Carding his long fingers through Derek's hair and pressing their cheeks together, their chests are flush against each other and Derek tries to match the pacing of Stiles' breath. 

"It's okay." Stiles assures him, "It was just a nightmare. You're alright, everything is over and done with, I'm not burning. We're both okay. We're safe." 

They sit in silence for a while, letting Derek finally get a strong hold on his breathing, taking long and deep breaths and smelling nothing but his and Stiles' scents mixed together in the best way. 

"Do you want to try and go back to sleep?" Stiles asks, and Derek shakes his head frantically, "Okay, that's okay. Let's put on a movie, alright? We were going to watch that one earlier anyway, but you fell asleep before we could get into it. I don't even have to get up to put it on, how great is that?" 

Derek lets out a weak laugh at the weak attempt of humor, but Stiles is trying. They've been living together for almost two months and Stiles still isn't quite sure how to deal with Derek's nightmares. Derek wishes that they would just stop, because he sees that they stress Stiles out and he hates it when Stiles is stressed out, but Stiles right now is calm. He's sliding off Derek's lap and settling against his side instead, reaching for the remote and turning on the DVD player and starting the stupid movie that he had heard about from Scott. 

And even though things aren't always okay, and they're not really  _okay_ now, there's still the scent of sleep and terror in the room, buried slightly under the smell of Stiles and his blatant relief. And that smell alone is enough to keep Derek as calm as he can get, because Stiles is  _there_ and he's  _safe_ and Derek doesn't doubt that he's going to have that nightmare again, but at least he knows that he's always going to have Stiles there to help him out of it. 

And that's all he needs to get him through the night. 

**Author's Note:**

> I focused way more on the nightmare than I was anticipating.  
> 


End file.
